Running's Rebirth in Rwanda

15 years after the genocide, running is coming back and helping the healing

More than 2,000 runners, ages 10 to 12, jockey for position at one end of the track at Kigali's Amahoro Stadium on May 24. Yellow-vested volunteers hold hands, forming a human start line for the Kids 5K Run for Fun, part of the Fifth International Marathon for Peace. Parents fill the stands, which have been painted the bright blue, yellow and green of Rwanda's national flag. The recently redone stadium, anchored by the vibrant green grounds of the soccer field and capped by a bluebird sky, call to mind a Disneyland experience: Rwanda, land where dreams come true.

It's easy to forget that exactly 15 years ago to the day, a genocide was afoot that would leave more than a million Rwandans dead. It's hard to imagine that this stadium once housed 12,000 terrorized refugees. That human beings and piles of waste were indistinguishable in the filthy haze hanging over the field. That not even the sun could burn off the stench.

The genocide of the summer of 1994 destroyed the tiny, land-locked country's infrastructure and obliterated its economy. But worse, it crushed its spirit. Rwanda had never been an athletic powerhouse, having made its Olympic debut only 10 years prior, in 1984, with four track and field athletes. But the luxury of Olympic dreams, of any dreams at all, died in those 100 days of violence.

"We sent 10 athletes to the 1992 Olympics," says Apollinaire Munyangoga, the former secretary general of the Rwanda Athletics Federation. "But after the genocide, most of our Olympians and our Olympic hopefuls were killed or went missing."

The country's entire athletic program fell apart as Rwanda embarked on the slow process of unification and stabilization. Only three athletes, all runners, went to the 1996 Olympics. None of them made it past their qualifying heats, and the lone marathoner was a DNF. "Sports were just not our priority," says Munyangoga. "There were no funds, and there were no athletes. It's like we lost an entire generation."